Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Argar and Andrea Jenkyns

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There are a number of points there. The ECSL is a response to, yes, acute capacity challenges, but it is a targeted scheme operating in prisons as required and where necessary. I gently say to him that a similar scheme ran from 2007 to 2010. In that case, it bore significant differences to what is happening now. ECSL, as operating now, contains a range of important safeguards that were simply not in place between 2007 and 2010. The 2007-10 scheme released some people straight into the community without any supervision and led to the early release of some prisoners convicted of terror offences. This scheme is totally different. It plays a role in managing the prison capacity challenges, but it has those important safeguards in place to protect victims and society.

[Dame Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Our prisons are full, so much so that the Government are sanctioning the early release of inmates to make space. At what point will we prioritise the deportation of foreign criminals who are taking up one in nine of our prison cells, so that we can get back to zero-tolerance policing and ensure that no crime is too small to go unpunished?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because she is quite right to highlight that a key element of tackling the prison capacity crisis is sending back, through deportation, foreign national offenders. She will be reassured that 18,000 have been deported in the past four years and we continue to drive that target ever higher.